Richard: Helping or Hurting?

Working as an EBD teacher in my first year is hard! I struggle daily with deciding what battles to fight and which not to fight. I am constantly asking myself if I am protecting the student from their disability or if I am enabling them. I recently chose not to address a student's actions, and because I didn't, the child took that inch and ran a mile with it, resulting in her fighting with another student. I was told that every negative or inappropriate student behavior in EBD has to be addressed and dealt with. I disagree.

In retrospect I should have addressed the first issue so that it didn't end with my student fighting another. I also realize that I am new at this and I will make mistakes along the way. This bad decision has made me excessively aware of each and every thing my students do as I work through all the potential outcomes of an action before I provide a response. I honestly detest it.

My main objection is the preoccupation with behavior. It seems as though the focus has shifted from my students as a whole and with their academics to an over emphasis on behaviors and body language.

My students have noticed the change and have become very cranky and expressed they feel like they are always in trouble. I feel as though the EBD student is a unique individual that requires a significant amount of understanding, compassion, and flexibility.

To create a productive and beneficial environment, you have to have rules with consequences. For the actions that are not on the classroom rules board, and for those that are a direct result of their disability or medication, it is purely a judgment call. I am left second-guessing my judgment now, primarily because I am inexperienced and fear that I have become desensitized. I feel like my decision-making has become clouded.

I want to make sure that I am giving my students room to make mistakes and learn from them without having to involve disciplinary actions, yet I have to make sure that they do not get the idea that they can work outside of the rules. I am sure that EBD students are not the only ones that require this level of supervision, so how do you walk the fine line between advocate and enabler?

Comments

[Justine]

I've been teaching youth with ED for 15 years. What I have discovered is that it seems people will quickly attribute negative actions of the students to the teacher and positive behaviors to the child. We assist our students in managing their actions and provide them strategies to thwart behaviors that hurt them or others. If you're doing this, you're doing your job. We all second guess our decisions--I still do; after all, we are humans. But in the end, if students make improvements, we're doing our jobs. I have many who choose to judge because behavior (unlike academics) is subjective, which makes us as ED teachers easy targets for those who choose to judge. But, believe in yourself and your students and you will be fine. Some of my toughest students have since returned to say thank you, and that means so much more than what co-workers think:) Hope this help-JustJ

[Rebecca]

There is a very fine line between advocating and enabling. At times it is hard to make a judgement call on what we should do next because we do not know what to expect next for our students. I know i have tired ignoring certain disruptive as long as the child is not hurting themselves or anyone else. As you were discussing, the behavior affects the rest of the students as well and the actions draws the attention back to the EBD student. When it really starts to affect the learning that is taking place, what is the next step? Does the EBD student be removed from the situation or given different activities to do?

Being new educator I also have many unanswered questions about what to do next because I'm not sure what is going to work and what will not.

[Rebecca Harris]

I do not have much experience in this field but found your feed to be interesting, and ideas that I fear for when I have my own classroom. Although I can't give you any specific experienced based advice, I can tell you that switching your system mid year or after this happened probably threw most of your students off. I work with more of the early childhood grades from pre-k to 3rd grade when I do substitute or observe, and student taught in an inclusive kindergarten classroom with an experienced teacher. She showed me how important it was to set the guidelines from the beginning of the year because even though many students hate routine at home, many cannot function or properly prepare themselves to be educated without the routine or disciplined routine that you are trying to follow. My advice is to not be discouraged, things are changing in your classroom that you can only educate yourself more about to try and aid in their learning at this point of the year. One of the hardest things, I believe, to do as a teacher is to discipline a child. I know for myself that as soon as I let one thing slide the students pick right up on it even if you don't think that they are paying attention to it. I know that this isn't much advice or help, but I can tell the passion that you have for teaching affects the way that you would like to discipline your students. It's not easy, and I fear this portion of the teaching field, but don't get discouraged, you learn as you go and IT IS okay to make mistakes, it's how you handle the next steps and what you learn from it that makes the difference! Good luck with the rest of the school year! Thank you!

[Talia]

This was a very interesting post. I teach SDD students and I expererience the same reaction when behaviors are not addressed instantly.Teaching students with various disabilities is a learning experience and it is important to use the mistakes as learning experiences. Time and experience are our greatest teachers. Continue to be an educator who exhibits compassion and patience because students need that from you. Wishing you the best!

[Amanda J]

Hello,
I teach in an EBD setting and can relate to what you are talking about. Sometimes in our field, you really have to rely on consistency and relationship building. The two go hand in hand. Towards the beginning of the year, consistency will be a necessity. Whatever your rules and expectations, you must stick to them. There should be natural and logical consequences, as well as, extensive positive praise for anything you can possibly praise! Once you get to know your students and they get to know you, the trust builds and you all know better as to what is expected. That is when you are able to better pick your battles. As far as behavior vs. academics, I am in that boat as well. I find certain behaviors, I teach through while others I will pause or postpone a lesson for if they are severe enough. We are in a highly delicate field because our students are so sensitive in all of these areas. You will learn from your mistakes daily, so keep on doing what you do!
Amanda J

[Jessica]

As a fifth year teacher, I still feel inexperienced and second guess what I am doing, because each student and situation is different. I agree with Steve. I work to create a respectful relationship with my students. I find this is my greatest tool, because even in a situation that the student feels like they are 'in trouble' they know that I am there to help them and they can talk to me about what is happening. Often this does not occur until hours or days later, but they know I will be there.
I also work to have a calm voice in every situation. It works in my favor that I do not know how to get loud of aggressive. Every year I have Crisis Prevention Training and I am forced to yell and every one knows this is just not who I am. Keep doing what you are doing. You will make mistakes, but you will learn from them. If you learn from just one mistake a day think about all they you will learn in a year.

[Steve]

This is a very interesting post and I'm glad you posted this! I work in a situation with troubled students and rules are very important when they enter my room. They understand the rules their first day in there. They also know the consequences. I have realized that having respect is a key to success. If you get respect from the student then they deserve respect back and hopefully after that there is no issues. I have learned that it's a relationship that not other teachers know of because it's a different environment in my room than in the normal classroom. I believe that being aggressive is not the way to go because that allows room for the student to be aggressive back. I use a passive voice while being corrective measures while talking to them.

[Laura]

In my 20 years experience of working with children of ALL abilities and challenges and having a special needs son, let me try to address the core. Not EVERY behavior should automatically have a consequence. What negative attitudes you say you are receiving from your students as a response may be a response to this. They may feel you have become the "police" as opposed to a teacher. Behaviors can be addressed, however. What I have learned over the years is this, if it is dangerous or breaks an established rule it has to have a consequence. If it is disrepectful and/or rude to another student it HAS to be addressed at that moment because you are the one who sets the boundaries but it doesn't necessarily have to have a consequence. Apologizing, redoing the "scence" with the appropriate interaction is a great way to teach, model and correct behavior. It also provides them with skills and an "we are all in this together". If it is disrespectful to you and/or the institution of school then you can make a decision to deal with now or later. What I have learned over the years is that a 5 minute direct daily instrucion lesson on what is "standard" polite, and respectful behavior, practicing it daily as a class, modeling it daily as the teacher, and "naming" it while you are doing it are the best ways to have long term success. I define what respect is in terms of behavior. I define what rude is in terms of behavior and am VERY specific. We talk about it in class with EVERYONE all the time. We model the behavior in class, we practice it, and when we screw up we role play how to better do it. The best lesssons are when I call myself out on not being the most respectful to someone and I say, "I need to start over and do that again". We "got back in time" and redo the scene where I then give a better response to a student. Them seeing that am not "perfect" is a great lesson. I have always worked in classrooms where I have kids for more than one year so after the first year the "oldies" help out and the "newbies" learn from the others. I hope this is helpful and if you would like more specifics, feel free to ask, e-mail.

[Pamela Caffery]

I think you realizing the things you are realizing about yourself and your teaching is the first step. You are on the right track. From a mother with a special needs child and a teacher of special needs, you don't parent or teach each child the same way. They all come with special circumstances that need to be taken into account when working with them. I try my best to stay informed about what my students are going through, what meds they are on, how they are sleeping, what their diagnosis is, etc. All these things help me make decisions on what and when is the right battles to choose. And I never work on more than one or two behaviors at a time. Good luck and hang in there.

[Stephen Conway]

Thank you for making this post. I can imagine that it must be a very complex and challenging situation. I am replying here since I am applying to a special ed Masters program, and your post reflects some of my concerns about what I might face in the future. I have some thoughts on what you've written, and I hope you will be patient with me since this is a very informal reply coming from a novice, so please take it with ample amounts of salt:) Here goes:While aggression is not acceptable behavior except in self defense, I'm getting the feel from your post that you might be taking full responsibility for the student's behavior along with her choice to escalate to a fight with another student. From where I'm sitting, that doesn't sound very fair to you. There was no way you could have predicted what the student would do given the fact that you are very new to teaching this population. I'm also getting the sense that the application of some universal principles might help in the class...but I could be totally wrong. You might already have some rules/priciples listed on your boards, but if not, maybe some simple things might help the class relax. This would be along the lines of the stuff we all learned in Kindergarten i.e. no punching, fighting, stealing, coercing another, or lying. We wouldn't want any of these things done to us, so to do any of those things to someone else is not fair, nor acceptable(teachers, authority figures included!) Discussing this with the class and gaining voluntary agreement might be a great place to start. My guess is that once the student's understand these basic principles for their classroom, and their lives in general, then the class will eventually, hopefully start to relax. This will in turn help you to relax and focus so you can get back to your job of helping your fantastic students, no one is excluded from that description. Consider letting them all know how great you think they are, and how excited you are to be with working with them. They may need to know that by hearing it form you. At the risk of coming off like a lecturer, the situation between the two fighting students might need to be addressed with each student individually in private, and then see if they'd agree to discussing what went wrong together in your presence. I think the key is to not force either party into doing anything they don't want to do, but this is just my amateur opinion.Please let me know if this is useful info, or if you'd like to discuss this further in this forum or elsewhere. Kind regards, Stephen